


Firefly

by ShrewburyBeezlebub



Category: twoset violin
Genre: Angst, I'm Sorry, JUST, M/M, brief mention of smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:48:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26015251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShrewburyBeezlebub/pseuds/ShrewburyBeezlebub
Summary: Yes, they’d have to talk about it but he needed a little more time to come to. To deal with the reality of hearing Eddy’s voice. To have a conversation beyond ‘bathroom’s free if you want’ and ‘it’s Edward to you’. He knew he’d have to face it but, fuck. Not now. Not like this.
Relationships: Eddy Chen/Brett Yang
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	Firefly

**Author's Note:**

> I read this piece of poetry (Voice by Ann Sansom) that took my breath away. This is inspired by it. I’d recommend reading it before you read the fic for a heightened experience (and also because it’s a nice piece) but no pressure at all  
> Happy reading!

The phone rang. Brett coloured, sheepish, and turned it around to see who was calling. He exhaled slowly and excused himself, leaving his parents to apologise on his behalf while he went to the balcony to take the call. Phones were not allowed at the table during meal times in Asian households. Especially not ones like these.

It was an unsaved number, one he couldn’t forget if he tried.

He knew they’d have to sort it out at some point. They’d taken a break from Twoset, from each other, carried on with their lives as though nothing had happened. Like moving out was an everyday affair.

Yes, they’d have to talk about it but he needed a little more time to come to. To deal with the reality of hearing Eddy’s voice. To have a conversation beyond ‘bathroom’s free if you want’ and ‘it’s Edward to you’. He knew he’d have to face it but, _fuck_. Not now. Not like this.

_They were sitting in the backyard of the Chens’ place in Melbourne. It was supposed to have been a boys’ night where they set up camping equipment but Oliver and Vivian bailed last minute, leaving just the two of them. They would have gone ahead with setting up the tent anyway if Eddy’s mom hadn’t been so sure it would rain during the night. Beside him, Eddy was doing that thing where he tried to lock up his anger but it curled out of his flared nostrils and made him look like those baby dragons in Brett’s only collection of fairy tales. Fighting his mother about med school was taking a toll on his otherwise gentle temper._

_He got up, yanked his best friend with him and settled down on the damp earth, careful to cushion Eddy’s head with one hand and muffle his shriek with the other. Ten minutes, he only had to lie still for ten minutes. He said nothing to Eddy, only pressing his finger against his lips by way of explanation. Then he turned back to the sky, setting up a pavilion among the clouds until he heard the gasp beside him. It was time._

_A dozen or so fireflies settled along the hedge encircling the yard. The boys sat up, Eddy biting into his knuckles to keep himself from being too loud. Brett had a cycle pump plugged into his heart, the nozzle huffing, red in the face, as his thorax stretched and squeezed and constricted into an inflated mess of spokes, ribs and wonder._

_He almost said it then. Almost leaned into the taut livewire of a boy beside him. Almost told him how he’d spoken to his sister every day for nearly a week, timed when the fireflies came out. Been this far from calling him an idiot for not knowing his own neighbourhood the way his best friend did. Suggested that he owed him bubble tea for this._

_He told himself he would have if Eddy hadn’t smiled, lips pulled apart taut like a tent and borrowed bioluminescence in his eyes._

_He could kill men if it meant Eddy would keep smiling at him like that._

Brett found himself patting his pocket. He was trying to quit smoking but he needed one. The Marlboro filter was a ghost of a familiar caress against his lips. Eddy used to say Brett kissed him as a proxy for when he missed having something between his lips. All these years and he never understood he’d got it the wrong way.

The phone buzzed once, twice. Went silent. Started ringing again.

_It was 2 am, dawn slow cooking over the remains of a Monday, and Brett Yang was standing in the balcony of a hotel room blowing smoke rings at the streetlights. Silently, a pair of arms wound themselves around him, the scratch of dry cuticles and bitten down nails tugging at his navel._

_“Left me for your wife again I see,” Eddy mumbled into his crown, voice still sagging heavily._

_“I thought you’d fallen asleep.”_

_“I had. Then I turned over and you weren’t there and I,” Brett felt the hollow of his lungs through the slight tremble against his back, “I thought you’d left me again.”_

The third time he called, Brett picked up, “Hello?” Nothing. Not even breaths. “Edward?” he tried again. The weight of it was strange, like trying to talk underwater. He’d have to come up for air sometime. He didn’t know how to.

“Eddy?”

“Don’t call me that. You have no liberty to call me that,” hearing his voice felt like someone had reached down his throat, torn through his intestines and held his spleen hostage.

A shaky exhale, then, “Look,” another exhale. Brett brought the filter to his lips, waiting. “Look, Yang,” Eddy’s voice cracked a little, “something needs to be done about the merch inventory. Do you want to make a decision or should I take care of it?”

“How much stock do we have?”

“Half of the first batch and all of the second.”

“How much do we need to dispatch?”

“Check. You have admin access to the orders too.”

He flicked the ash off the cigarette, watched it drop off the lit end as a perfect cylinder and fall apart the moment it hit the handrail.

_They were fighting again. Eddy was riding him, putting on a show the way he did when he wanted something. Nails clawing into his chest with a possessive desperation, hips rolling out a demand to be seen, every breath a ‘stay with me, please, be here with me, I need you here with me’. Brett leaned up to kiss the boy. He reached behind him to grip his neck and hoisted himself up, bringing their noses together. He pushed himself closer. Felt more than heard Eddy’s, “Introduce me to your parents. Properly,” against his lips. Felt himself grow soft._

_He needed a cigarette._

“I have guests over Edward, I can’t check right now.”

“Guests? Your dad hates having people over on working days. Unless it’s for...” Brett could hear the cogs whirring in his head. He heard the click just as he kissed the filter, “You still haven’t told them.”

He let his silence be his answer.

“And you won’t either. You’ll let them go ahead with this. You’ll marry some girl, think of me while you fuck her, play happy families.”

Another kiss, more quiet.

“You’re a sick bastard Brett Yang.”

“You haven’t changed any of your passwords.”

“What’re you getting at?”

“You’re still mine.”

“I’m not a whore Brett, and most certainly not yours.”

_Eddy left. He just left. He put up a story saying they’d be taking a break from Twoset on all their socials, slept on the couch until all his things were settled in wherever he was moving to. He refused to tell him where. He cooked for one and cleaned up after himself. He never let him hear him cry. It was over._

“I love you.”

“You’ve only ever loved yourself Brett.”

“Eddy no.”

“Will you introduce me to your parents? Properly?”

Silence.

A sigh. A call disconnected. A cigarette dangling between fingers like a lone firefly in the night.

**Author's Note:**

> In all seriousness, please don't stay with people that hurt you if you have the choice and the ability not to.


End file.
